Early light is not a choice, so this fails as a game design consideration.

I presume he was including Keen Senses, which really helps a lot with this (avoiding all cases that don't involve diagonal movement past a corner if I recall correctly).

Quote:

One way to re-balance violet molds would be to lower their will, which would make reasonably high player Will give reasonable "sustain con" against them.

I looked into this as it seemed like a good idea. But the violet mold Will is currently 3, which is the standard Will for a 250ft creature. This means that with Will 8, you have an 84% chance of avoiding the drain for each attack. That actually seems about right to me. In contrast the drain effect from a herb of sickness is at Will 10.

Quote:

Oh, I could definitely be called careless. I play with "automatically dismiss -more- prompts" on, after all. And yes, I don't micromanage my "shift-direction" running, and I don't micromanage my manual walking. Sometimes while I'm exploring, I will press the direction keys in a rather automated fashion where I might not notice the purple 'm' on my diagonal that I'm sliding past. He might get 2 shots at me before I notice. He might get another while I try to distance myself.

Thanks for explaining more detail about what is going on in your games for those who are puzzled as to why you seem to be getting about 10 times as much Con drain as some other players. I'm fine with you playing your games however you want, so I don't mind if you change the way violet molds work. I think your light solution is interesting, and that removing them, lowering their Will, or adding a prompt are reasonable options, even if I don't prefer them. However, it sounds like most of your complaints are better understood as 'violet molds are unreasonably dangerous if you play fairly carelessly at that depth', than 'violet molds are unreasonably dangerous'.

Early light is not a choice, so this fails as a game design consideration.

On a smith? A helm of brilliance sounds like early light to me.

I'm not a fan of molds either, though more because I find them boring rather then dangerous. I'll usually have keen senses or a helm of brilliance anyway. The only time they make a difference to me is if they're blocking off my retreat.

I presume he was including Keen Senses, which really helps a lot with this (avoiding all cases that don't involve diagonal movement past a corner if I recall correctly).

It's much more common for me to forge a Lesser Jewel of Brightness or Helm of Brilliance at the first forge than to take Keen Senses. In theory you could also get Song of the Trees, though using it in every dark corridor would become tedious in a hurry.

That said, there's no good reason not to add a prompt for walking next to a known mold the same way there's a prompt for walking into a known trap. Protecting players from mistaken inputs isn't "babying" them, it's good UI design.

Thanks for explaining more detail about what is going on in your games for those who are puzzled as to why you seem to be getting about 10 times as much Con drain as some other players. I'm fine with you playing your games however you want, so I don't mind if you change the way violet molds work. I think your light solution is interesting, and that removing them, lowering their Will, or adding a prompt are reasonable options, even if I don't prefer them. However, it sounds like most of your complaints are better understood as 'violet molds are unreasonably dangerous if you play fairly carelessly at that depth', than 'violet molds are unreasonably dangerous'.

I disagree that they're better understood that way, half.

If we want to delve into why violet 'm's frustrate me more than apparently most, we can. The builds I play fully explore levels and spend about as much time as the game allows at the "danger zone" for violet molds: 150-250. This is pretty unavoidable for a slow-starting smith who really needs that second forge before he can brave the deeps, and who's highly motivated not to be chased off levels.

Builds which start with higher survivability can generally quickly dive past those depths; that would be the best way to play in any case even if you weren't motivated to skip by the molds. Melee/evasion characters that I've played did just that.

Perhaps it's just be easier to give dwarves restore 1 con on their bread, similar to grace for Lembas. If you get unlucky, you eat Cram. It seems fair, and...thematic, maybe? I always think of the hardiness of the dwarves, but I can't keep straight what's D&D and what's LoTR.

Is the following statement correct: "If you have light 2 by any means (forged helm of brilliance, forged lesser jewel of brightness, keen senses, song of trees) and only move horizontal/vertical when you can't see two tiles diagonally from where you want to go, then you can never be attacked by a purple mold before you discover its existence."?

However, it sounds like most of your complaints are better understood as 'violet molds are unreasonably dangerous if you play fairly carelessly at that depth', than 'violet molds are unreasonably dangerous'.

To be fair, I think many of us play the early game carelessly just because we have to play it relatively much more often than the mid-to-late game, especially when trying out a new build. This could be the reason why we still get complaints about purple molds when they are relatively rare on paper?

__________________
Glaurung, Father of the Dragons says, 'You cannot avoid the ballyhack.'